


meet me in the afterglow

by ivyrobinson



Series: death by a thousand cuts [4]
Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: F/M, second chance love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22946011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyrobinson/pseuds/ivyrobinson
Summary: sequel to death by a thousand cuts. anya and dmitry are reunited three years after their break up.
Relationships: Dimitri | Dmitry/Anya | Anastasia Romanov (Anastasia 1997 & Broadway)
Series: death by a thousand cuts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605637
Comments: 34
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

It shouldn’t be this easy to lose track of someone again while living in the same city. Anastasia knows this is a ridiculous thought, especially in New York City. But she truly intended to keep in touch with Dmitry after the wedding. She saw him at the wedding- as the best man, it was hard not to see him and then at the reception he had given his speech. They had danced one song together, for old times sake. A mistake, immediately because the familiar feel of his hand pressed against her lower back was imprinted deep on her skin and she hadn’t realized it until that moment. 

Running away for three years to avoid the messy emotions of a break up did nothing to curb the sharp sting when you returned. She lost track of him afterwards, so maybe she wasn’t the only one that liked to run away. 

It’s easy to lose track of time in New York. She started a job at an art gallery. Now back in proximity to her family- her wonderful, suffocating family, her attention is demanded more and more by them. Dinner with her parents, drinks with Alexei, brunch with Olga’s family and so on. Maria calls her at random times, no regard for time zones or working hours to discuss wedding details. 

She’s having it in New York, so as the maid of honor, most of the details fall onto her, as though it was her own wedding. She’s finding, however, her and Maria would have very different weddings. 

Three months passed, spring began to peak through when she saw Dmitry for the first time since she officially moved back. And she’s not certain why she’s caught more off guard now than she was when she first spotted him before the wedding. 

Maybe because she hadn’t fully planned out this meeting, prepared herself for the mood she had wanted for it. Braces herself against an influx of emotions. 

Or maybe it was just the casual way he leaned against the counter at coffee shop, locked in conversation with a pretty woman who was definitely sending him signals that he wasn’t ignoring. 

This was not the first time she’d seen someone flirt with Dmitry. He was handsome and charming and certainly aware of the fact, so they had encountered it a time or two or twelve throughout their relationship. He had always been firm but kind in his rejection and not reciprocating. 

“Name?” The barista asked her, jolting her out of her thoughts and vague spying upon her ex boyfriend. 

“Anya,” she found herself given, still half trapped by the past. 

She blinked after saying it, though there was nothing preventing her from going by Anya again. Or still going by Anya. It had just not happened while she had been in Paris, her grandmother and sister constantly referring to her and introducing her as Anastasia. 

She walked slowly over towards the pick up counter. Dmitry had his coffee but he and the woman were still talking by the counter. Finally the girl leaned over, pressing a kiss against the corner of his mouth and said her goodbyes. 

“Anya,” called out the barista, setting down her drink. 

Anya grabbed it, as Dmitry turned around at the sound of her name. Dark pink was smudged on the corner of his lip. 

“Hey,” he greeted her. “You really are back in town.”

“It’s been a whirl,” she responded, apologetically. She could not stop looking at the lipstick smudge. She had no right to an opinion on how he got it, but wouldn’t it be friendly to warn him if it’s existence? “You work around here?”

“No,” he said, and he fell in step beside her as she walked towards the door. “Just met up with a friend quickly.” 

“You don’t have to do that,” Anya told him. “If you have a girlfriend, you can just say you have a girlfriend.”

“She’s not a girlfriend,” he said. It wasn’t defensive, just matter of fact.

For some reason Dmitry being casual about dating and hookups made her feel weirder than if he did have a girlfriend. Like she had broken him somehow. 

Then again, maybe she was the exception that proves the rule. He hadn’t had a serious girlfriend before her, nor did he seem to have one after her. 

It felt awkward now, as he held the door open for her to walk out. 

“Do you work around here?” He asked. They were still going the same way. 

“Not quite,” she told him. “I had a meeting. I work for an art gallery up town.”

“Fancy,” Dmitry commented. He gestured to the upcoming subway stop, “I’ve got to get to work.”

Anya already had an app open to book a ride. Their differences seemed painful and obvious. 

“It was nice seeing you,” and she believed she actually meant it. She just wanted to jump ahead to the part where it wasn’t awkward or bittersweet and was just warm and easy. 

She had started asking for too much when she was eighteen and never stopped. 

-

“Nice lipstick,” Marfa greeted him as she opened the door to let him in. She reached over and rubbed her thumb over his mouth, cleaning it away. 

“Thanks Mom,” Dmitry said, swatting her hand away. “I met up with Suzie.”

Which meant he had spent the entire conversation with Anya with lipstick on his face. Well, at least he had ensured that the entire conversation was awkward as possible. 

“She’s fun,” Marfa commented, handing over Mikhail to him. 

“Who are you?” Dmitry asked her, shifting the infant in his arms. “You’re really getting Suburban mom energy.” 

“So says my nanny,” Marfa tossed back at him. 

It was not a position he had meant to have. It’s just one that seemed to be given to him with no real consultation. It started of with an “I’ll watch him” once or twice and ended with “I don’t trust my child with anyone else”, citing the foster homes they had cycled through as proof of how terrible strangers could be with children. So he had ended up with a job. 

“Go to work,” he told her, shooing her away with his free hand. “Mishka and I have big plans this afternoon.”

“Suzie?” She asked, ignoring his request and bringing the conversation back to the earlier topic. 

“She’s fun,” he evaded. There was nothing to evade, he and Suzie had gone out a few times and might go out a few times more but neither of them were particularly serious about making sure that happened. “I ran into Anya.”

He debated whether or not to bring it up to Marfa, as he knew what her reaction and lecture would be. But he also needed someone to remind him of that so he wouldn’t find himself doing anything stupid. 

Marfa frowned, “She’s not fun.”

Dmitry could disagree with that, but he only knew a past version of Anya now. Who knew what she was like now? He tried not to think of that at all these days. 

“She works at an art gallery uptown now,” he ignored her dig. 

“Of course she does,” Marfa said with a roll of her eyes. “Stay away from trouble. Stick with fun girls.”

“Is this the opposite of a time to settle down speech?” Dmitry asked her. 

“Yes, go wild,” she wagged her fingers at him as she collected her bag and jacket to leave. “No one is ever going to be good enough for you.”

In Marfa’s biased opinion. 

Marfa pressed a kiss against his lips and then one against Mikhail’s cheek. They were both stained with burgundy lipstick now. 

“I love you both,” she called out as she left. “Gleb will be home around 6!”

Dmitry turned Mikhail around so he could clean his cheek. Weirdly, hanging out with a two month old was the most calming part of his day lately. 

-

“If your theme is going to be Moonlight in Paris,” Anya said, holding her phone above her as she lay on her sofa, FaceTiming with Maria. “Why not have the wedding in Paris?”

“Mama and Papa will only pay for it if it’s in New York,” Maria explained. Probably not for the first time, but it seemed silly to plan a wedding from an entire country away. She had hired a wedding planner and yet still had a new task for Anya every single day. “You know how they can be.”

Actually, she did. It wasn’t a place she ever thought she’d get to when she was younger and first reunited with her family. Overwhelmed by the number of people in her family and the history they all had with each other. 

She wouldn’t give it up, but she was comfortable enough to admit it wasn’t the happiest place to be. 

“You got a inheirentance from Nonna,” Anya pointed out, “You could find your own wedding on that alone.”

Maria looked slightly offended by that, “I shouldn’t have to pay for my own wedding, Nastya. It’s the principal of the matter.”

She remembered all the cold and hungry nights she spent growing up. Lonely and unloved. Sometimes the distance between her and her sisters was greater than she remembered. 

“Forgive me,” she sighed. 

“So how is New York?” Maria asked. Her sister was getting ready for the day at 6am Paris time while Anya was avoiding falling asleep in New York. “Are you even going out?”

“Not really,” she admitted. The only person she could really go out with that she knew was their little brother. There was a three years difference between them but sometimes it felt like a decade. “I did see Dmitry today.”

“You should sleep with him,” Maria announced. 

Anya sat up because she had spent about three years living with Maria as she insisted that all Anastasia really needed to do was get over him. 

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve spent years watching you compare everyone you date with him,” Maria told her, setting down the phone as she did her make up. “It didn’t work. Clearly, you just need to fuck him and get it out of your system.”

“Well we’ve done that before.”

The first time a stolen moment in a hotel room before they had realized she really was Anastasia. It was all whispered words, lingering touches and frenzied kissing. She had been ready to give up pretending at that moment and just continue on whatever journeys her and Dmitry could have together. 

And then. 

“Avoiding him since breaking up with him,” Maria continued on, as though she hadn’t just pushed her youngest sister into a whirlpool of memories. “Has only built him up in your mind. You need to be brought back to earth and reality about this relationship.” She could see her sister’s shoulders shudder. “Nothing does that quicker than backsliding into sex with an ex.”

“I’ve really missed your sisterly wisdom,” Anya told her dryly. 

“Good,” Maria said, picking the phone back up. “I haven’t yet forgiven you for moving back yet.”

“You could move back,” she pointed out. 

“Don’t tell Henri,” Maria said. “But Paris is my first love.” 

“Your secret is safe with me,” Anya held her phone up so her sister could see her crossing her heart. “And now I should get to bed.” 

“Go out this weekend,” Maria told her. “I’m going to text Alexei to make sure he takes you with him.” 

Anya rolled her eyes and hung up. She made her way to bed, thinking of her sister’s ridiculous advice all while feeling phantom lips pressed against her neck.


	2. Chapter 2

Dunya showed up before Gleb got home on Friday night with a plan. Well not a plan, as much as a demand that Dmitry go out with her to the bar that night. It did not take much convincing. After spending all day with a baby that decided to spend it being fussy, he was down for a copious amount of alcohol. 

She ordered them double shots of tequila to start them off which probably said she had about the same kind of day as he did. 

Dunya put the money on the bar, “Ever have a girl buy you a drink before?”

“Yes,” Dmitry took his glass of brandy from the bartender. 

In fact, in addition to the obvious, all three girls insisted on purchasing his alcohol whenever they went out. 

She rolled her eyes at him, “Get out of here with your pretty face.”

“Double D!” A voice rang out and Dmitry looked over to see Tatiana and Alexei Romanov sitting over at a corner booth. They were joined by someone he vaguely recognized as a friend of Alexei’s and a girl who had her arm around Tatiana that he had never seen before. 

No Anya in sight, so the two of them made their way over there. Dmitry pulled up a chair while Dunya slid into the empty spot at the table. 

Tatiana leaned forward, hands stretched out for his drink. “Is that brandy?”

Dmitry handed his drink over to her, “Just a sip, Tanusha.”

Out of all her sisters, Tatiana and him had always had the best relationship. Olga always regarded him with a big sister’s overprotectiveness, and Maria always regarded him as competition for her sister’s time and attention. (A competition she had won, by bringing Anya all the way to Paris with her.) 

Tatiana also got along with his three friends. Sometimes too well, given the several supposed one night stands her and Marfa had shared throughout the years. (Supposed in the way of was it really a one night stand as they called it, if it was several over the course of ten years.)

Tatiana arched an eyebrow and stared at him as she took the longest sip she could without choking. Then she slid the drink back to him. 

“Cute,” he commented, and the girl beside her glared at him. 

“Oh,” Tatiana said, “This is Dunya and Dmitry, old family friends of ours.” He supposed that was an accurate enough statement. “Guys, this is Katerina, and I think you’ve met Kostya before.”

They all exchanged pleasantries, and conversation turned to various workplace complaints and stories. An unfortunate side effect of all of them getting older. 

Dmitry, Kostya and Alexei all grabbed another drink and headed over to play darts as the girls went out on the dance floor. 

“Have you seen Nastya?” Alexei asked him, throwing off Dmitry’s aim. 

Anya’s younger brother had always been a clever little shit. 

“Yes,” he responded finishing off his drink and ordering another. “Last week we ran into each other at a coffee shop.”

“And?”

Dmitry shrugged, “And it was pleasant. Why?”

Pleasant, awkward, and strange. 

“I just don’t get it,” he told him. “Whenever I see one of my exes I lose my fucking mind.”

He really couldn’t afford to lose any more of his mind over Anastasia Romanov. 

He reached over and ruffled Alexei’s hair, “We are just older and more mature than you.”

“The older part is right,” Alexei agreed as he got shots for him and Kostya. “I think you and Nastya are crazy to be pleasant to each other.” 

“Time heals all wounds,” Dmitry told him, though he wasn’t quite certain of that himself. 

He raised his glass up by way of goodbye, leaving the two boys to themselves and making his way back to the table. He found Katerina in his chair and Anya downing a shot at the table. 

He supposed he brought this on himself with his boast to Alexei. Anya wore a revealing, metallic shirt and tight jeans and her lips were bright red. 

So, he was still a liar. 

“I think I’m heading out,” he announced to the table. 

“Don’t leave on my account,” Anya said, standing up. The heel of her shoe got caught on the step down and she wobbled slightly and he reached out, holding her waist to steady her. 

Touching her was (always) a mistake. 

“No one’s leaving,” Tatiana announced, “You two go dance, it’s been over three years.”

He could feel Anya’s small laugh under his hand. Dmitry guessed he had drunk enough for this. 

“If Tatiana insists,” she said softly. 

Dmitry moved his hand off her waist to offer it for her to take before leading her out to the dance floor. 

-

Anya should’ve picked up on how weird Tatiana had acted when she first showed up at the bar. She just thought her sister was surprised by her appearance, and that Alexei either hadn’t mentioned it or had forgotten to mention it. But after two drinks, and several shots, Dmitry had appeared. 

She had seen her brother playing darts with two other men, but hadn’t thought much of it. And frankly, after living in close quarters with Maria for those three years, she didn’t want to know much more about her siblings’ love lives. 

She should’ve felt that Dmitry was there. And now his hand was in her hand, and the other against the small of her back. His head was over half a foot above her, but he was not looking at her so it felt even further than normal. 

“Thankfully Vlad had us do all those ballroom dancing lessons,” Anya commented, referring to the etiquette training for heiresses Vlad had put her through back in New Mexico. 

Now that she thought about it, she didn’t remember much discussing the time between New Mexico and New York, once it was discovered she actually was Anastasia. 

Dmitry looked down at her, and smiled, making his pimple pop out. She stared at his lips and tried to forget Maria’s advice from the week before. “Ah yes, I find myself constantly relying on my ability to dance a waltz perfectly.” 

Someone crowded Anya from behind, pushing her in closer to Dmitry. She had not drunk enough for this. 

“You were terrible at the waltz,” Anya reminded him. “You kept lifting me in the air and spinning me around, which I later found out was not a normal step.”

Dmitry looked around as though gauging how much space they had free around them. 

“No!” She protested, “Dima, there’s no way we have enough space for you to lift or twirl me. We’d have to go outside.”

He was staring down at her, and she realized her slip. It was just difficult for him to not be Dima to her. 

“We could,” he said, finally. “Go outside, I mean.”

Anya looked over at the long walk back to the front of the bar and her siblings and his friends they’d have to pass to do so. She wasn’t certain it was a good idea for them to go outside but she knew there were at least two people who would try to stop them if they saw them going off alone. 

“We’d have to leave out the side patio,” she decided. 

Dmitry maneuvered them over to the side door, also seeming to be cautious of them not being seen disappearing together. He climbed over the patio fence, and held his hands up as she climbed over. He held his grip on her waist as he lifted her down.

He held her in the air, near eye level with him for a long moment, and she hoped they were about to do something stupid. Instead, he placed her on the ground. 

They got back into position, and her fingers curled against his shoulders in anticipation before he lifted her up in the air and twirled her. 

She was laughing, light and free when he set her back down. 

“We still got it,” he proclaimed. 

Their eyes locked. 

“We do,” she agreed, still clutching his shoulders. Then she leaned into it, lifting herself up higher on her toes while pulling him down to meet her. 

Dmitry tasted of liquor and home, and other pieces of her that had been missing for so long now. 

This wasn’t anywhere near a good or smart idea, but her will to care slipped away with every movement of their lips. 

They stumbled through the sidewalk in front of the bar. Hands everywhere, caught up in a competition of muscle memory of who could remember what the other liked more. The rushing of blood, the quickening of her heartbeat and restless feeling crawling through her told he was winning. She threaded her fingers through his hair and tugged gently, eliciting a groan from deep within him. Having regained some of the control, her lips moved from his to below his ear and sloppily down his neck. 

Even at eighteen she didn’t think she had ever been this reckless. Leading up to their first time has been a lot of palm to palm and hands squeezed, an arm looped around her. Longing and staring and gazing. It had seemed sweet and romantic at the time and never this primal. 

Dmitry caught her as she jumped up to wrap her legs around him. His breath in her ear saying his apartment was only a block or away from there. Her pulling away slightly to nod her consent. Him carrying her, as she made sure her lips touched every part of his face. As though if they lost this sort of contact the spell would be broken and their brains would sober up and they’d realize that this was a colossal mistake. 

She held onto him through the entrance, her feet locked together behind him as they took the elevator ride up. She didn’t even take in the living room as they passed it, to stop to dwell on whether or not it reflected the Dmitry she had known. Then again, it didn’t need to, because here and right now was the Dmitry she had known. 

She pushed his jacket off him, as they made their way into the bedroom. She was unceremoniously dumped onto the bed, as he pulled his T-shirt off. Despite the fact she had spent nine years of her life watching him do exactly that, she found her attention riveted, the way his muscles moved as he pulled his shirt off. 

He tossed his shirt over on her, it bouncing off her face onto her chest. Teasingly, he asked, “Like what you see?”

Anya bit her bottom lip and just nodded hungrily. Her hand moved to slide under the waistband of her jeans. Then he was over her, his mouth slanted over hers, while his fingers worked the button and zipper of her jeans. She gasped in relief and need as the bottom half of her was freed from the tight construction of skinny jeans and underwear. Dmitry leaned down, kissing the top of her fingers. She could feel his breath against her, and she lifted her hips up towards him. 

“So impatient,” he murmured, ignoring her offering and bringing his head up to kiss her lips instead. 

“I want everything,” she demanded as their lips pulled apart. 

His hands were under her shirt, “You always did.”

Anya reached down for the button on his jeans before they could think anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one goes out to cat, for surviving the great spider attack of 2020

There was something distantly familiar in the way Dmitry woke up. It was not the vague throb of a hangover he felt, or the way the sunlight was already in full force behind the curtains. Then he heard a thud against the foot of his bed and a French curse. 

Oh fuck, the familiar feeling of waking up next to (well sort of in this case) Anastasia Romanov. 

It had taken all of three run ins, one decidedly not sober one and they had backslid like it was nothing. 

“Ditching before I awake?” Dmitry sat up, pushing his hair out of his face and blinking the semi blurry vision of Anya glowering at him while holding her jeans. “What a player move, Romanov.”

He held his hand out in a fist bump and she reached over slapped it down. 

“I was going to wake you before I left,” she said behind clenched teeth. She held up her jeans. “I have no idea how I got into these last night.”

“Hold on,” Dmitry said, finding a pair of sweatpants on the floor and pulling them up as he got out of bed. He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out athletic leggings and a hoodie. “These are either from Paulina, Marfa or Dunya.” 

He felt the need to explain that to not make it weird. But there was no non awkward way to offer you ex other girls closing after hooking up. He was almost positive of it. 

Anya stared at them for a moment, before reluctantly taking them. She threw her jeans on his bed and pulled on the leggings and the hoodie over her metallic shirt from the night before. 

Standing there in casual, comfortable clothes, barefoot and with messy hair made her look more familiar than she had last night. 

Then they stood there awkwardly staring at each other, now that Anya’s clothing crisis was over. 

“So, this happened.” Anya said gesturing between the two of them. “I have no interest in breaking either one of our hearts again, Dmitry.” 

He wondered how much longer she had been awake than him to have a speech that seemed this practiced at the ready. 

“I’m not expecting anything, Anya,” he replied, sitting back down on his bed. “We had unresolved stuff between us.” 

“And it’s resolved now,” she agreed. “And now we can move on to the next phase of our life. Friends.” Then she corrected herself. “Friendly.”

He wondered what was a worse idea- what they had done last night or going along with this belief that they could be friends again or friendly. Well they could be friendly but…

“The moment you leave this apartment, this is resolved and friendly,” Dmitry agreed. 

Anya didn’t miss his wording, “As soon as I leave this apartment?”

He reached out and pulled her over towards him. “There’s something about knowing when it’s the last time, you know?” And maybe that was the closure that he truly had needed.

Anya nodded and leaned down and kissed him. And then kissed him some more. They truly had things absolutely figured out. (The level of sarcasm of this sentence had yet to be determined.)

Then her phone made a noise and she groaned and reluctantly pulled away, “You’re making me late to my parents’ brunch.” 

There was a moment where they stared at each other and then jumped apart. 

“A little too much deja vu,” Dmitry said. 

“Yeah,” Anya agreed, shaking her head. “Um, so see you around- I guess?”

Dmitry stood up and placed a kiss on the top of her head, “It’s good to have you back in town.” 

She gave him a little smile and nodded before disappearing from his bedroom and then his apartment. 

He fell back on his bed and wondered if it was too early to start drinking. 

-

There was a long list of the ways Anya was completely fucked. She had made the decision to sleep with her ex last night, while tipsy yes, but while fully knowing that it was a stupid idea and not caring about how stupid it actually was. Then she overslept- at her ex’s apartment. She had also moved back to New York without an apartment so she had moved back in with her parents and had been too lazy to find an apartment. So when she would arrive late for family brunch in borrowed clothes and her jeans from last night balled into the hoodie pocket, her walk of shame would be beyond obvious. 

Also she should really not live with her parents anymore. 

She wanted to sneak around to the back but the back was closer to the dining room, so she went to open the front door, only to have Olga pull the door open and pull her in first. 

“Anastasia,” she said in an impressively controlled but loud whisper. “Where have you been?”

“Oh,” came a voice from behind her and Tatiana appeared. They just needed to get Maria on FaceTime and her sister humiliation would be complete. “Look at this walk of shame Nastya has going on.” 

“Walk of shame?” Olga managed to yell by just mouthing the words to her. 

A voice came from the other room, her father asking if she had (finally) arrived. 

“We just need a moment alone with Nastya,” Tatiana called back, and grabbed her by the elbow. To Anya she said, “Isn’t that where Paulina went to grad school?” 

Anya looked down at the hoodie, which she hadn’t paid much attention to. In all honesty, she hadn’t fully believed Dmitry when he said it had belonged to one of the Girls. But she supposed he wouldn’t try to hand off other hook up’s clothes to her. It had been a weird morning. 

She hadn’t even been certain what to think or say or what the next step should be when she had woken up in Dmitry’s bed. As a girl who had difficulty for most of her life with memory, waking up beside Dmitry had fucked up her reality for a good five minutes before she brought herself back and remembered ah yes, the past three years had happened. 

“Paulina?” Olga was still whispering, even though they were in the privacy of Anya’s bedroom. It was weird, with the exception of a handful of nights, and the time between her and Dmitry’s break up and leaving for Paris, Anya had never actually lived in her bedroom at her parents until she had moved back. Well, technically she had spent the first 7 or so years there, but memories before she was 8 were still sparse. “Are you….?” 

“No,” Tatiana rolled her eyes, answering for Anya. Then, to Anya, “Wait, I mean?” Anya shook her head. Tatiana turned back to Olga, “She was just with someone who would have Paulina’s clothes just lying around.” 

It took Olga a few extra moments longer than it should have to connect the dots. 

“Anastasia,” she said, “No, you did not sleep with your ex.” Then, “He is still your ex, right?” 

“Yes,” Anya said with a sigh. It hadn’t even really come up in discussion. She didn’t know how she felt and if it was the alcohol or the nostalgia, or how easily it could be to fall back into step with Dmitry that had influenced her the most the night before. But it felt like she should get a handle on that before even speaking any of this outloud. 

She wondered if she’d ever stop feeling guilty for how abruptly she had pulled the pin in everything years ago. 

She felt like she was on a journey, forever trying to reach something just out of her grasp. 

Tatiana sprayed dry shampoo in her hair, working her fingers through her sister’s hair quickly. Olga just walked away, pulling things out of Anya’s closet. Once Tatiana was done with her hair, Anya pulled the jeans out of the hoodie pocket, throwing them on the bed, and pulled the sweatshirt over her head. 

She fixed her hair a little more, looking at the mirror. She still looked like she had absolutely returned from a walk of shame. Tatiana walked over, holding the jeans up.

“I’m really impressed he got these off of you,” she commented. “You guys were really committed to being stupid last night, huh?” 

Anya pushed her sister away, “You’re the one that told us to go off and dance.” 

“Yeah at the bar,” Tatitana returned. “Not in his bedroom.” 

Olga handed Anya a strapless bra, and Anya pulled her shirt off from the night before and the bra, discarding it to her bed. She fixed the bra on, and Olga gestured for her to lift her arms up, which she did because when Olga told you to do something the reflex was to do it. Olga pulled over a floral sundress over her head. 

Anya reached under her dress to pull off the leggings and her underwear. Olga handed her a clean pair of those as well. Tatiana stepped behind her and zipped up the dress. Her oldest sister, now that Anya was clothing presentable, got to work on trying to fix her face. 

Tatiana lifted one of Anya’s arms up to spray deodorant in her armpit. Anya took the can from her sister to do the other one herself, “I’m not a doll, you guys.” 

“If you come down looking presentable, I assure you our parents will have a lot less questions to ask you,” Olga lectured her. 

“I’m almost thirty,” Anya pointed out. “It’s none of their business.” 

“You’re new,” Tatiana said, patting her on the cheek. “But you’re not that new.” 

“Also say that again when you have your own apartment,” Olga told her. 

This day had started with a hangover and with her naked in her exboyfriend’s bed and somehow managed to go downhill from there. 

“Pucker up,” Olga instructed her, and Anya did before a pale pink lipstick was applied to her lips. “Blot.” 

“Where’s your perfume?” Tatiana asked and Anya pointed to her second drawer, “Just in case our parents recognize the scent of sex and Dmitry.” 

“Don’t be crude,” Olga scolded her. 

Tatiana sprayed two spritzed and Anya walked through it. Looking in the mirror she looked slightly less like a disaster and more like the daughter of Nicky and Alix Romanov. That version never quite felt like her, but there was no time to reflect on that. She had to come up with an excuse as to why she was late to the house that she currently lived in. 

Olga sighed as she looked at her, “It will have to do.” 

“She means you look beautiful,” Tatiana said as Olga left the room. Her sister stopped her from following. “Are you okay?” 

“Yes,” Anya said, taking a breath. After all, she had to be. “I’m fine. Just human.” 

Tatiana gave her a quick hug. “Sometimes I worry.” 

Nothing to worry about, she obviously had her life completely under control.


	4. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a brief interlude for an entire update of flashbacks for Reasons

When Anya turned 18 and left foster care, she had not really had a plan as to what she should do or where she should go. So she did what any sensible teenage girl would do: she saw a psychic. She gave her rather typical readings- you’ve lost those close to you, a great love will come into your life, etc etc- though thinking about that now she hadn’t been wrong about those exactly. But then she said Anya was destined to meet a kindred spirit. Someone to love, to be family. Somehow she had connected that to finding her family. And took that as a sign to follow the invisible string trying to tug her to New York. 

There was a moment, when Anya, Vlad and Dmitry had been on their way to New York, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in middle America. They had been staying with questionable people, and Vlad had stayed in that evening. Dmitry and Anya were out and about, and she didn’t even recall why, but they had ended nearly getting mugged. They had both managed to fight them off and evade but they had hidden in an alleyway to wait for it to be safe again. 

They weren’t being so disagreeable towards each other anymore, but it’d be a stretch to call them friends. But without much to do, and having been in situations similar too many times before, he had begun to talk. 

He spoke of growing up without a mother, and then losing his father while he was still so young. (Her words, not his.) Growing up in poverty, and being homeless and what it meant to survive. 

She saw so much of the past ten years of her life in the stories he told, the invisible string suddenly had a short pull. 

“So we both don’t have any family,” she had said, quietly as though she meant to say it to herself but the words had made their way into the outside world as said. 

“You don’t know that,” for once, his tone was pure and kind. Then his bravado returned, but the mask was no longer the same. “The answer is in New York.” 

She had never felt less like she could actually be Anastasia Romanov than she had in that alley with Dmitry. And she started to wonder if it wasn’t her biological family she was meant to find after all. 

And he must have seen the doubt surround her because he told her to close her eyes. She had looked at him like he was crazy for suggesting she be that vulnerable when they had nearly gotten beaten and mugged. 

“I’ve got your back,” he had told her. “Just close them.”

Anya had closed her eyes. 

She felt a cold and slightly heavy thing placed in her hand. She opened them to see a beautiful, but somewhat beat up music box. 

“It’s beautiful,” she said, lifting it up to look at the bottom of it. The words on the bottom were dirty and worn. 

“It’s broken,” Dmitry sounded sheepish about it. He was forever collecting seemingly broken and ugly things and restoring them to something useful and beautiful. One time, in exchange for a meal for all three of them, he had restored someone’s antique radio that hadn’t worked for 25 years. She had sat beside him, watching his hands work around the intricacies of the electronic and tried not to be impressed as he brought it back to life. “I haven’t really had a chance to fix it, but it kind of felt wrong to. They think it belonged to Anastasia.” 

Sometimes he forgot to keep up the charade that they thought she was Anastasia. And she had wondered if he had ever noticed when he did, but that night his attention had been fully focused on her reaction. 

It turned out the music box wasn’t broken. Just a bit of a riddle of how to figure out to get it to open and work. But somehow she knew the steps without even thinking about it. And that night he had watched, impressed, as she made something old and broken come back to life. 

Somewhere near the east coast, not quite to New York. They were friends by then, and so close to being something in addition to. It may have been Ohio. Anya would think she’d remember the exact spot where she fell in love for the first time, but all the towns and states had all bled together as they traveled. They had gotten a hotel room but there had been only one room left with one twin size bed. It wasn’t the worst accommodations they had ever had on the trip. But Vlad insisted on taking the bed. (He was an old man, a bad back, etc etc - all his words. They had the youth to be able to sleep on the floor or tub.)

Anya had asked Dmitry if they could go camping instead. He had started to protest and then had taken one look around the tiny hotel room and had agreed to it. 

Out in the open fields, and she’s still not certain if it was actually legal for them to camp there. Back then, it was best to not peer too closely into those matters when traveling with Dmitry. There was a tent, but they had stretched out along the grass, their hands a whisper away from touching. Her heart had beat so fast in that field next to him, she was fairly certain she was about to have some sort of attack. Be it heart or anxiety. 

They weren’t close to a city, she remembered, or thought she remembered, because the stars were out in full view. 

“You should build me a telescope,” Anya told him, rolling on her side to face him. She didn’t know when she had grown accustomed to asking people for things. Or him. Just him. 

“I don’t know how,” he lied. She didn’t know for certain if he was lying at the time, but she could feel the lie as he spoke it. 

“You take the most ugly, broken down shit,” she told him. “And you can see the history and beauty inside of it, and bring that back out. You’re telling me you don’t know how to create a telescope?”

Sometimes, the only times she could believe she might actually be Anastasia Romanov was because of this ability of Dmitry’s. 

“It’s not the same thing,” he had told her. 

She wondered what it was like to be raised by such a great shadow of a man that you were afraid to touch a single part of what had made him. 

“You don’t even need a telescope tonight,” Dmitry told her, pointing at the sky. “Everything’s right in plain view.” 

“Do you know the constellations?”

“Yes,” he said, and he rolled on his side to face her as well. “But they’re the least interesting thing about the sky.” 

“How so?”

“Constellations are like celebrities, the entire world thinks they’re fascinating and much more than they actually are,” Dmitry said. “Individual stars that are just ordinary, regular stars are the ones that matter.” 

“I think they’re all wonderful,” Anya declared, rolling onto her back to look at the stars again. Dmitry stayed looking at her. “Do you think the stars are just as hard to see as they say in New York City?”

“Probably,” he said. “There’s a lot to get in their way.”

Anya had glanced back over at him, and they stared at each other for a beat or two. She would have given anything to have been kissed that night, laying in the field in the middle of nowhere under the stars by this boy, but as soon as her eyes had fluttered shut, Dmitry had pulled away. Sitting up, reaching into his messenger bag as though he had something to actually look for. He had pulled out an apple, for something to do she supposed, and began to eat that. 

The disappointment had steadied her heart. 

A few weeks after moving to Paris, when Anya still mourned her relationship with Dmitry. Or maybe who she had been when she had first been with Dmitry. It was an endless cycle of grief and guilt and doubt, and unsure how she should feel when she had instigated it all. 

It wasn’t completely her fault that she and Dmitry had no longer worked. There were layers of reasons and things they had both not handled well or right. Decisions and choices had been made. But she had been the one to pull the plug on it. 

Maria has said something about how Anya probably had ruined the entire city of Paris for Dmitry by leaving. She was trying to make a moment seem light, but it had just rang with harsh truth. 

She may have ruined Paris for him, but it was just a distant city. Easy to avoid. He had ruined the stars for her and they followed wherever she went.


	5. Chapter 4

With the exception of his height (and gender), Dmitry looked nothing like his father. His brown hair, brown eyes, dimple and the slope of his nose all belonged to a stranger he had never had the chance to actually know. His father used to look at him with this distant look in his eyes and knew he was thinking of her. He wished he had known what was so wonderful about his mother. His father had grand stories about everything and he couldn’t trust this larger than life figure his father spoke of. 

When his father was alive, they would go out every year on her birthday to plant flowers on her gravesite. The tradition had stopped after his death, Dmitry was hustled around from place to place too much in the foster care system. He hadn’t even remembered what cemetery it was, he had just blindly followed his father every year, a potted plant and gardening tools carried with them. 

He wondered if his mother would be ashamed of what a terrible son he was to her at times. It was so hard to mourn a stranger. Growing up, he wondered what it was like to love someone so much you couldn’t let them go long after they were gone. He didn’t wonder about that anymore. 

Dmitry had mentioned this story to Anya once, somewhere along the east coast on their trip to find her family. He didn’t even know what the context of the conversation was, at this point in their relationship words would slip out freely. Words his brain hadn’t yet fully formed into thoughts. 

Several years later, he would learn Anya had tracked down his mother gravesite and paid to have a local florist shop deliver flowers to her grave every year on her birthday. 

He never knew quite what to do with such gestures directed towards him. But it was things like that made it so hard to let her go when she left. 

So he avoided everyone he knew until Monday morning. 

“I don’t know if I want someone so stupid watching over my child,” Marfa said when he walked into her apartment on Monday morning. 

“I thought you left him alone all the time with Gleb,” Dmitry returned as she handed over the baby despite her claim. “Why am I stupid?”

He knew why he was stupid, but given his avoidance of him friends over the weekend he had hoped news wouldn’t travel. Though he was stupid if he thought Dunya and the other Romanovs wouldn’t put two and two together with them disappearing at the same time. 

Marfa slapped the arm not holding her child. “Dunya saw you and Anya dry humping outside the bar.”

“Oh that,” Dmitry said, sitting down on the sofa with Mikhail. 

“Dima,” Marfa said. “I love you dearly but you don’t know what you were like after that break up.” 

Actually he remembered it very clearly and tried to keep to himself but none of the girls would allow him to. So if she complained on how he handled the break up, honestly it was all on her. 

“Marfa, I love you dearly,” Dmitry parroted, “But there’s nothing to worry about.”

She still stared at him as though there were. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Dmitry said. And maybe he pushed away any and all feeling about Anya and their relationship, but one night of slip ups was no reason to rehash it all. “But all I want to do right now is hang out with Mishka.” 

Marfa rolled her eyes, but said goodbye to the both of them. It seemed like a perfect days to roam around outside. 

-

“I am exhausted,” Anya announced, but her sister and her girlfriend did not allow her to stop. They had spent half a day so far looking at apartments. 

If anything the brunch fiasco has taught her two weeks before was that she should absolutely have her own space. Tatiana had agreed, and said that Kat worked in real estate and could help. 

Kat had asked her if she wanted roommates, and Anya, who had gone from living in group homes, to living with Dmitry, to living with her grandmother and Maria before moving in with her parents, decided that no, she’d like to live on her own. 

Her biggest obstacle had turned out to be Tatiana, who didn’t like any of the apartments in Anya’s price range. 

“Don’t you have an inheritance from Nonna?” Tatiana asked her. 

She did. She had spent it on moving expenses and then tied them up in investments, because that’s what some financial advisor had told her to do. It felt weird and wrong to spend her grandmother’s money, and she had never quite gotten used to spending money. 

“I don’t want to touch it,” Anya told her. “I want to live within my means.” 

“You’re a Romanov,” her sister pointed out. “Your means are endless.” 

That was a complicated subject, and one Anya didn’t even want to begin to touch with her family. 

“These apartments are way nicer than places I’ve lived before,” Anya said. Tatiana stiffened, the way any of her family did when her childhood away from them was brought up. Before she had moved to France, she had just stopped mentioning it. She felt like it was pouring salt in a wound. “Kat wouldn’t put me in some place that was bad or unsafe.” 

Tatiana snorted, “Kat works off commission.”

“Wow ok,” Kat spoke up. She had stayed quiet most of the afternoon, allowing the sisters to discuss the apartments without much commentary. “Thank you for your trust, Anastasia.” She merely glared at Tatiana. 

“But can we go over our options tomorrow?” Anya glanced over at her sister. “And maybe in private.” 

Tatiana rolled her eyes. “You could always come live with me, Nastya.” 

“That’s sweet,” Anya said. And it was, even if her sister was missing the point. “But I just want some space on my own.”

In her family’s mind she had ten years of space on her own, away from them. And when she had been returned, she hadn’t been returned fully. She had immediately moved in with Dmitry. 

At some point she had thought herself selfish, for the way things had happened after discovering who her family was. They had wanted her with them, she was still a teenager, albeit one that was eighteen. She had been in love and was afraid of losing Dmitry if she didn’t keep him close by. But now she just missed her will for independence, which felt as though it had been run down and deflated for years now. 

“Okay,” Tatiana relented. “But are you certain you don’t want an apartment building with a doorman?”

Kat and Anya exchanged a look and sighed. 

-

Dmitry and Mikhail had developed a routine in the mornings when they were together. It was mostly Dmitry’s routine, given Mikhail's status as an infant. But with spring continuing to warm up the city it was nice to get outside more. He went to go leave for their morning walk around the block, when he opened the door and saw Anya standing there. 

“You’re...here,” she said. Then she shook her head, “Sorry I just had some stuff of Gleb’s he told me to drop off with the nanny.” 

Dmitry raised his hand, “I’m the nanny.”

Anya laughed, “I don’t know why he wouldn’t just say that.” 

“He probably wanted whatever you are bringing him,” Dmitry said. Though Gleb hadn’t mentioned it to him either. So the most likely case was that Gleb just liked to pretend Dmitry didn’t exist. 

It had always worked well for both of them. 

“They’re not that important,” she said, peeking over at him at the stroller. “Can I see? I haven’t met him yet.”

Dmitry took the folders she handed him and stepped aside so she had access to it. “He’s teething, so if he cries don’t take it personal.” 

Anya squatted down to talk to the baby as Dmitry tossed the documents onto the table. She and Mikhail were both playing with a rattle when he came back. 

“I wish I had known you were here,” Anya said. “I would’ve brought back the clothes you lent me.” 

Dmitry shrugged, not wanting to remember that night at this moment with her so close by. “No need. I don’t think Polly remembers they even exist.” 

“Where is Paulina? I don’t think I’ve seen her since I moved back,” Anya commented, pulling herself to stand back up. 

“Massachusetts,” he responded. “She moved last year.” 

“Oh wow,” she said. “I didn’t think I could picture any of you guys leaving.”

He was well aware of that. 

“I almost went with her,” he admitted. “I don’t know if New York ever really suited me.” 

But then Marfa had been pregnant and emotional about the possibility of being far away from two of her best friends. There was always a reason to stay, he supposed. 

She was quiet and it had grown awkward. They were saying things not really meant to be about the other, but still felt like they were. 

He wanted the moment to pass without argument. 

“Where would you go if you could move anywhere?” 

“I don’t really know,” he said. The other reason he had never left once he had settled here. “I enjoyed traveling the Midwest.” 

It was all open space and big skies. 

“Or the west coast,” he continued. “Not New Mexico, though.” 

She let out a soft laugh at that, and considered him as though she was picturing him in the places he had mentioned. She had seen him in a lot of those places. 

“Never again New Mexico,” she agreed. “I should probably head to work.” 

Dmitry walked over to open the door for her. “Mishka and I will walk you, we were headed out anyway.” 

Anya looked down at Mikhail, “What gentlemen you are.” She looked back up at Dmitry, “You’re really good with children.” 

He shrugged it off, he had always been one of the older ones in foster care so he had grown used to them. 

“Despite his parents’ genetics,” Dmitry explained as they got on the elevator. “He’s a really easy baby.” 

What a strange reality to find himself in with his ex-girlfriend.


	6. Chapter 5

When Anastasia Romanov came home for the first time in eleven years, she didn’t want to be there. She had stepped foot into a giant foyer, and her feet itched to run. She did not remember this place. Everyone spoke to her as though she had never left. Rattling of names, relationships and events as though they should be familiar to her. They were not. 

She missed Dmitry. She had pushed that thought away before it could even fully form in her mind. Dmitry didn’t matter. Dmitry had used her. Every night spent, every time their hands had interlocked and every whispered word between them had been a lie. She didn’t miss Dmitry. She just missed the night sky. 

No, she wasn’t mad at him for lying to her about thinking she was Anastasia. She was mad at him because she was Anastasia. Everything was a complex jumble of emotions she couldn’t even begin to untie. 

“You need a haircut,” said one of her sisters. She couldn’t even tell them apart at this time but there she was holding up a strand of Anya’s too long hair, showing off a split end. 

“Those shoes have seen their last step,” said another sister. Anya’s shoelaces were frayed and dirty. 

“We should get you into some clean clothes,” said her mother. She looked down at Anya’s clothes, as though the thought of even touching them might give her a disease. 

Every person chipping away everything comfortable and worn and known on her and stripping to this person she was still so unfamiliar with. 

The moment she had with her grandmother, the other day when she had remembered some had felt so much happier and lighter. She was a person and people loved her. It had felt like everything she had wanted at the time. 

People did love Anastasia but now Anya was struggling with the attention. 

Was it rude to barge back into a family eleven years later and announce you were alive and then completely disappear again? 

Less than twenty four hours in everyone’s company and so many tears had been shed over her already. Time, she just needed time and this persona would fit like a glove. 

It’s not that being Anya had ever felt completely right either. 

She had been scrubbed clean, painted, stuffed in a dress and ready to be paraded around. Flashes of light in her face as her photo was taken, a portrait of a young woman returned to the loving bosom of her family. She smiled and expressed her gratitude and love whenever a reporter asked her a question. Or maybe it was just friends and relatives. They were growing difficult to tell apart. 

Then she had found her brother in a back room, hidden away from the guests. Or hiding away from the guests. She did not ask, because it didn’t feel like her place to. 

“What happened to the guy you came back with?” Alexei had asked. He fidgeted as much she had wanted to fidget that night. At fourteen and with zero memories to remember her by, her brain only felt quiet around her brother. “Olga and Maria never date any cool guys like that.” 

“You only saw him for a second,” Anya pointed out. “And he’s not my boyfriend.” 

“He certainly looked all…” Alexei made a heart with his fingers and placed it by his eye. “Over you.” 

Dmitry was a very good actor, she had come to find out. She had wondered if he had ever felt a genuine emotion in his life. And how many stories had been the truth. (They had all felt true at the time.)

“It wasn’t over me,” Anya said, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. He’s fourteen and doesn’t deserve the bile she’s currently feeling. “He’s in love with all the money he got for finding me.”

Alexei frowned, “No, he wasn’t.” 

Anya couldn’t stop the sigh that escaped, “When you’re older you’ll understand it more.”

“I’m not stupid, Nastya,” Alexei was all exaggerated facial expressions and rolled eyes. “I mean he didn’t take any of the reward money.”

Anya froze. Alexei had no idea what he was talking about. “Of course he took the money.”

“He didn’t take the money,” this time he says the words slowly as though that was her issue with understanding what he was saying. “I heard Mama and Papa talking about it. He didn’t want a dime of it. Said returning you to them was reward enough.”

Anya had no idea what to say because all of her anger and disappointment began to deflate out of her at Alexei’s words. 

Of course, Alexei in all his fourteen year old boy’s glory knew exactly the right thing to say. 

“You look like a fish,” he told her. He sucked his cheeks in, making motions with his mouth like a fish. 

Anya reached over and hit him on the shoulder. 

He rubbed his shoulder, and stared at her in wonderment. “None of my other sisters ever hit me.”

Oh, shit right. She was failing so hard at being a sister. At least he looked impressed by it. 

Anya looked around the ballroom, she had made an appearance, even though she had been hiding with Alexei for awhile now. Bonding, if anyone else came in to ask what she was doing. 

“I think Vlad said something about him going to Penn Station,” Alexei told her, staring up at the ceiling. 

Anya stared at him for a long moment, “You’re a snoop.” 

“You keep my secret,” Alexei told her and pointed at the door, “I’ll keep yours.” 

She gave her brother a quick nod, picked up the skirts of her dress and ran. 

-

On the first day of being a Romanov, Anya had left them to chase after Dmitry. She had come back, but she had chosen Dmitry on day one and she felt like she had been making that up to her family ever since. 

Sometimes she didn’t know if it was the kidnapping that had them keeping her on a tight leash, or that first day. Or maybe it was all in her head and she had been battling a silent war for the last decade over one that had never actually existed. 

Her thoughts and emotions were all over the place. 

“There’s no rush for you to move out,” Olga told her. She had a home office set up on the dining room table, despite the fact she no longer lived at this house. 

“I’m almost thirty,” Anya pointed out. “I have a job, I have the means and I need the space.”

“You just lived in Paris for three years,” Olga pointed out. “That’s an entire oceans worth of space.” 

“I lived with Maria and Nonna,” Anya reminded her. “I didn’t run off on my own.”

But she would’ve, was Olga’s unspoken argument. 

“I just don’t understand the rush,” is all her older sister said. 

“Are you eager to move back in with Mama and Papa?” Anya asked her sister, sweetly. 

“It’s different for me,” Olga said. 

Different because she had grown up here. Different because their parents had been robbed of the chance to raise Anya themselves. 

Anya pulled out some leftovers from the refrigerator. She picked at whatever seemed appetizing. 

“Sometimes I wonder if you all blame me for getting kidnapped,” Anya said softly. 

She had never felt good enough, worthy enough to be Anastasia and more and more of her had been stripped from her in efforts to prove herself. 

Olga froze, “No one blames you for getting kidnapped, you were seven.”

“Sometimes it felt like I was being punished for being stupid or careless.” 

Her sister snorted inelegantly. “Sometimes, Anastasia, you acted like you were being punished for being returned to us.” Olga closed her laptop. “You weren’t here to see what life was like when you were gone. It stopped for us.” Anya opened her mouth, her sister held up a hand. “I’ve only seen Papa cry twice- once when they said you were unlikely to be found and again when you were found.” 

Anya knew. Or rather she had been told. Endless stories of her family’s suffering with her absence. 

“I had a life before I came back,” Anya said. It hadn’t been much but it was all she had for so long and… “I can’t help that.” 

“I know,” Olga said, her mouth wobbling into a sort of frown. “But when you came back to us, you weren’t fully with us.”

That wasn’t really her fault either. She had found so much with Dmitry. 

“Dmitry never tried to keep me away from you guys,” Anya said. He had brought her to them, maybe for the wrong reasons when they started but that had ended up being his main goal. 

“He didn’t have to,” Olga said, with a sigh. “And what a conversation to have so late at night.” 

“Sorry,” she told her sister, and she meant it. “I’ve been out of sorts since moving back.”

Or always. She felt like she didn’t fit in her life one way or another for as long as she could remember. And that had always been the issue. The parts she failed to remember. 

Olga stood up and kissed the top of her head. “I wouldn’t trade you being back for anything in the world, Malenkaya. Except for maybe, you have never been gone in the first place. I hope you find the peace you seek in this life.” 

“I do love all of you,” Anya grabbed her sister’s hand. “I hope you all know that.” 

“We know,” Olga said softly. “You were just always destined to be the difficult sister. No matter your fate.” 

“I’ve heard you were nothing but a saint,” Anya said. 

Olga snorted, “You heard wrong.” She squeezed Anya’s hand. “Why are you thinking about all of this tonight?”

Because she couldn’t stop thinking of it. She couldn’t stop fixating on it. Her life had been on such a strange path, she needed to understand the roots of who she was. 

And also, the one thing she had been trying very hard to not think about. 

She looked up at her sister and said, “I think I might be pregnant.”


	7. Chapter 6

The problem being in love with Anya was that there was no off switch. Nothing to stop the tide. Just delays and pauses and going through the motions. No matter how much he could enjoy another person, no matter how much his friends could hope of him moving on, it wasn’t anything that he could ever shake. 

Or maybe he was stubborn and stupid and couldn’t let go. 

It’s thoughts like that had been following him for the past three years and he had been pushing aside just as quickly. 

Sometimes it was more difficult than others. He was in the middle of restoring an old music box, when those thoughts wouldn’t go away, when there was a knock on the door. 

Dmitry knew, before he reached the door, before he opened it exactly who was behind it. 

“This place is really hard to find in the daylight,” Anya commented when he opened the door. 

Dmitry stepped aside to let her in. “You have to be looking for it to find it.” 

She gave him a small smile. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out the hoodie and leggings. “I know what you said, but it felt wrong keeping them or tossing them.” 

Dmitry took the clothes from her, setting them down on a nearby chair. “I’m sure Polly will appreciate it when she remembers they exist.” 

Anya nodded, distracted as she looked around. “I didn’t get a good look at it...before.”

Weeks ago when they had stumbled around in the dark, and then she rushed out to meet up with her family. 

“Here,” Dmitry reached over, taking her hand to lead her over to the kitchen. “It’s small but a tour. This is the kitchen.” It was in a slight state of chaos from the dinner he had cooked earlier. He brought her out to the living room. “Living room.” He opened a door, “Bathroom.” He pointed towards the other door. “Uh, bedroom if you recall.” And then the small area with the table he had been working at. “And dining room-ish.” 

“It looks much better than your old place,” Anya commented. It took him a moment to realize she meant his first apartment. The one back west. “This one has more personality.” 

Dmitry let go of her hand, “I believe your exact words were that my couch had a better personality than I did.” 

She laughed, her face lighting up with memory. “I forgot, it wasn’t the apartment that lacked a personality, it was that you lacked a good one.”

He could hardly blame her for the insult. Knowing what he did now. 

Anya picked the music box up off the table, studying it. “You’re fixing a music box?” 

“Yes,” he said, “Apparently it can be a rather niche skill to have.” He gestured to the sofa. “Did you want to sit down?”

Dmitry had no idea why she was there, unless his mind had literally conjured her. But he knew she had to be there for a reason. 

“Oh,” she breathed, looking around again. “Yeah, sure.” 

They sat on the sofa, she took the music box with her. She absently winded it up, and then set it down as it played. It played a slightly out of tune Russian lullaby. 

“I used to think you could fix anything,” she commented, watching as the dancers twirled. 

“Not anything,” he said. “Just most old antiques.” 

Some things were rusted beyond repair and unfixable.

Anya reaches over, her finger tracing over his jawline as though he was a ghost. Dmitry turned his head, and rather thought he might be, because she leaned over placing a kiss on his lips. 

Soft and lingering. 

“Sometimes I miss you so much I don’t know how to process it,” she said when they pulled apart. 

“I can’t fix you,” he reminded her. 

She nodded, straddling his lap. “I know.” 

The her hands were in his hair, her lips on his, reminding him that he, too, could not be fixed. 

-

The nightmares had always been abstract. Taken from some sort of surreal place where nothing quite fit and nothing made sense. It split her head open with pain, filled her lungs with an anxious panic and her mind overwhelmed by near memories. She’d awaken, upset and confused but never being able to fully explain what had upset and confused her. 

Tonight, New York City below her, the nightmares seemed more coherent. Not fully. But she could fill a hand on her mouth, the sense of being pulled away, a cold basement. A sense of…something she couldn’t quite place. 

She woke up screaming. Something that didn’t normally happen when the nightmares came. Too many punishments had been handed to her from foster home to foster home. She learned to silently scream, pant and sweat out her fear. 

Hands were on her shoulder, settling her. Comforting her. The words weren’t harsh but soft and soothing. 

“Anya, Anya, you’re in a hotel in New York,” the voice said. Hands smoothing over her hair. Her hands reached out and touched muscle. Unfamiliar but familiar. “You’re not wherever your mind just took you.” 

She breathed. One. Two. Three. New York City. Hotel. Dmitry. 

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she said, finally, once her breathing had slowed down to a more reasonable rate. 

Dmitry let out a sharp, but brief, laugh. “I wasn’t sleeping.” 

She wondered if he had cause to feel as anxious as she did. Being here, now, after all this time didn’t feel quite real. Part of her wanted to turn around and run. She had gotten too close to a dream and she couldn’t handle the emotions that came with it. 

He got up, stepping out of her grasp, but she got up on her knees, reaching out and pulling back close. “In that case, stay with me? Just for a little while, even. I’m…” 

She didn’t know quite how to verbalize what she was feeling. She had been frightened but with him here now created a calming presence. 

He stared at where her hand was on his arm. And swallowed. And nodded. “Sure.” 

Anya scooted over on the bed, patting the spot next to her. He still hesitated, but he settled in, leaning against the headboard. 

The bed was rather large. Vlad has gotten them a giant suite. Choosing now to splurge. She had a bedroom and he had a bedroom and Dmitry stayed on the pull out couch in the living room. She had no idea where Vlad had gone that night, or even if he had returned. She rather thought not, given he hadn’t come running when her nightmares made her scream. 

Still, there was no space between her and Dmitry. Her leg against his, his arm along her side. For the first time since she had awoke, she noticed his attire. 

Or lack thereof. 

She fought a blush, and hoped the dim light of the room masked it. “Do you ever wear a shirt to bed?”

“And deprive you of the view?” He teased. 

“It must be so difficult to walk around so handsome,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. Anya placed her cheek against his shoulder. “Do you really think I’m her?” 

She closed her eyes, expecting a flippant response. An ‘of course I do’. 

Instead, his answer was a soft, “I want to believe that you are.”

She tilted her head up, his eyes an even darker shade in the shadow of the room. “Why?”

Why did he want her to be Anastasia? Why was she Anastasia? Why was she here? 

“Because you deserve a good ending to your story,” he told her. “Or rather a beginning to a great story.” 

Anya pulled back, shifting slightly so she was facing him rather than sitting side by side. “And you? What do you deserve?”

This time his laugh was dark and sarcastic, “Whatever’s coming to me.” 

Anya frowned, because it sounded so sad and lonely and defeated. Nothing she associated Dmitry with. Her hand reached out, cupping his cheek, her thumb brushing over the dimple above his jaw. 

He tried to pull away, but she held steady. Backed by her youth, her own desire and the soul of this boy that was anchored to her. Another time, another place, another boy and she would’ve taken this as rejection. But she knew this wasn’t what was going on. 

She leaned in and kissed him, and he was a statue in return. Unmoving below her, except for the clenching of his hands against the bedsheet. 

“Anya,” he said. “You shouldn’t…” 

“I can do anything I want,” she said, defiantly, her chin tipped up like a spoiled heiress’ would. She kissed him again, and he was unmoveable. She could feel the emotional distance he was putting between them. “Stay with me, please, Dmitry.” 

His eyes met hers, and she could see the moment he lost whatever war he had been fighting. When she kissed him once again, he moved under her lips, pulling her further and further in. 

She didn’t want to ever let him go. 

-

This was not what Anya had meant to do when she had shown up at Dmitry’s. It was just some emotional pulls were difficult to ignore. She had put an entire ocean between them for three years to keep them away. 

Being alone with Dmitry made her crumble and fall apart, it seemed. 

She sat up, trying to push her hair out of her face. She could feel his hand along her bare spine. Soothing. Anya turned and could still see him lying on his back, his arm slung over his eyes. 

“I don’t mean to keep doing this to you,” Anya said, with a sigh. 

He pulled his arm off his eyes, sitting up. “I think there’s two of us at fault here, Anyok.” 

“I broke up with you,” she said, and she looked around for her clothes before remembering most, if not all of them, had been discarded back in the living room. “I can’t break up with you and then keep showing up sleeping with you.” 

Dmitry handed her a shirt. She pulled it over her head. It felt soft and smelled of him. “Call it a learning curve.”

One she was doomed to fail time and time again. She untangled herself from the sheets, trying to find a decent and comfortable way to sit. 

“I came over here for a reason,” she said, reminding herself more than she was notifying him. It was just a really hard reason to bring up. And having sex first wasn’t the best way to introduce the topic. 

“I assumed,” he said. He was patient with her in a way he hadn’t been when they had first met, and a way she grew to take for granted when they were older. 

There were a dozen ways she had pictured delivering this news throughout the years. And this had not even been her first pregnancy scare with him. 

She searched for her memory how he had reacted the last time, but she couldn’t recall anything. Even so, they were not in the same place they had been eight years before. 

Olga had been clinical, almost detached after expressing her sisterly disappointment after Anya’s announcement. She had gone and gotten the test herself, rattling off statistics of accuracy of the test as they waited. 

It hadn’t occurred to her when she had blurted it out she was talking to her sister who had gone to medical school. She felt like she should have a bunch of brochures after they had parted and Anya had made her way back to her room in a daze. 

There was no perfect way to say this, no best timing. So she would say this, while in his bed, half dressed in his clothes like they were stuck in a moment from the past. 

“I’m pregnant.” 

And thrust them towards to future.


	8. Chapter 7

There were so many emotions that went through Dmitry it was difficult to sift through them individually. It was like the seven stages of grief but different emotions, at lighting round speed and a similar outcome of acceptance. There was a bizarre sense of relief that this was not a conversation he was having with another girl, as well as a sense of inevitably of ok, of course he’d get Anya pregnant. His life was already so tethered in hers that… 

“I need pants for this,” was probably not the best sentence to have in reaction to the news, but also wasn’t the worst. 

Dmitry reached into a drawer and pulled out pajama pants to pull on. 

“Do you want something to eat?” He asked her. 

She stared at him, her eyes wide. “That’s your reaction? You offer me food?” 

“Would you prefer water?” Dmitry asked her. 

The thing of it was, there was a part of him that mourned the possibility of what could have been. Had they continued on before, and not broken up, and probably had gotten married by now. He hadn’t thought much of traditional families growing up. He had lived in too many variations of homes to consider them. 

However, spending almost a decade amongst Anya and her siblings, even if they didn’t always get along, had developed an appreciation for what could be. 

“I was just expecting…” Anya climbed out of bed. So much smaller and shorter than him when barefoot. 

“What do you want from me?” He asked softly. 

And wasn’t that always the question he had for her? Unspoken or spoken. Stay with me, she had once asked. 

And he had. And they had both lost so much of themselves in the process. 

And then she had left and they had lost even more. Or at least, he had. 

“I want to know what you’re thinking,” she told him. 

“I don’t know,” he said. Dmitry reached over, pressing his palm against her cheek. “What do you want to do?” 

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just want to know that you’re with me, no matter what.”

Dmitry wondered if he should feel bitterness in the way she always asked from him, without hesitation. 

“Always have been,” he promised, and she nodded. 

They stood there awkwardly for a moment. Then he took a step forward, and she flung her arms around his neck. Her feet hovered over the ground as he wrapped his arms around in a hug. 

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. Before he could inquire what for, she continued on. “I reappear out of nowhere, a total mess, sleep with you again and announce my pregnancy.” 

“I was a participant in like three out of four of those things,” he said into her hair. “It’s not all on you.”

Dmitry set her back on her feet. 

“Don’t tell my siblings,” she said, offering him up a wobbly sort of smile. “But you were the first and best friend I’ve ever had.” 

He just gave a nod at that, “Did you want any food?”

-

Anya played with the pasta on her fork more than she was eating it. Now that the difficult part was over for the evening, the actual telling, she wasn’t quite certain what to do with herself. She hadn’t been certain what to expect when she told him. Even less so when she had slept with him before doing so. 

As far as any of her plans went, that had been far from a thought for it. But he had been there, and presence spoke to hers and she just needed to be close to him to be vulnerable like she needed to be. 

Or maybe she was selfish and took what she wanted without sparing a thought. 

She had spent far too many moments with uglier aspects of her personality to not be able to identify them now. 

She had envisioned happiness (unrealistic, but the scene had played out in her head on the ride over), anger (unrealistic as well, if she thought about but at the time had felt like a possibility), denial, something with heightened emotion. She had not been planning on the sort of quiet acceptance that had happened. 

Like yes, okay, of course we’d have a child together. As though he could see far into a future that she couldn’t. She had always envied the confidence he used to have in them, until she had started to rebel against it. 

Give a person everything they’ve ever wanted, and they’ll find a way to destroy it. 

“Thank you,” she said because it’s late, and she doesn’t know what else there is to say. 

There’s too much to say, too much to plan but nothing that actually needs to be figured out that night. 

“It was better when I first made it,” he told her, because for all his bravado, Dmitry never quite learned how to take a genuine compliment.

“I’ll try to call ahead next time I have life altering news,” Anya promised. 

“You don’t have to wait for that,” he replied. “You can come over for little things, too.” 

She took a bite of the food. She wondered if she had ever considered this before with him. Having a child, or children, with Dmitry. At the beginning, she had been overwhelmed by the concept of having any sort of family to begin with. 

The first few years of being a Romanov, again, is just a giant game of constantly catching up. Her family also had a habit of treating her like a child, at times, like they had picked up where they had left off when she was seven. Dmitry always treated her like an adult. And most of the time she had felt somewhere in between. Unsure how to be someone’s child or someone’s equal. 

She looked over at him, his brown hair not quite as long as it had been when they were together but no longer as short as it was when she had seen him at the wedding. Maybe she had some thoughts, back when they were together. Abstract thoughts of figureless children laying out in the grass with them staring at the stars. 

“Only if you promise to cook,” she teased. 

Dmitry kissed the top of her head, and everything felt a little too familiar. He took her near empty plate from her, discarding the waste and setting it in the sink. 

It’s a good kind of familiar but one that should be sorted out before another person was brought into it. 

“We should figure this out,” she said, finding herself brace enough to speak the words out loud. 

She should also get dressed and go back to her parents. Though she still hasn’t figured out a course of action yet, for that particular conversation. 

“We should,” Dmitry agreed, leaning against the back of a chair. Still shirtless, with pajama pants low on his hips. “But, stay with me tonight?”

Anya nodded. He had never asked that of her before. 

-

Dmitry had gotten up early in the morning, a sense of deja vu and not quite reality with Anya by his side. After dinner they had stretched out on his bed, falling asleep while a movie played softly in the background. 

She had been reluctant to wake, so he had made breakfast instead. Which still proved to have the power to lure her out. They had kissed on the cheek a goodbye before heading to their respective workplaces. 

Marfa immediately handed the baby to him, as soon as he walked through the door. 

“Well hey,” he greeted Mikhail, who gurgled happily at him. “Guess who is getting a cousin?”

Marfa turned around sharply at that, stopping in the midst of her getting ready. “Dmitry, who did you get pregnant?” Then she gasped, “Oh God, it was Anya, wasn’t it?”

“I thought we were having a conversation,” Dmitry told Mikhail. 

“God,” Marfa pulled at his jacket sleeve. “Please, Mitya, tell me you’re fucking with me.” 

“Yes,” Dmitry said, as Mikhail began to chew on his collar. “This is exactly how I decided to mess with you this morning.” 

“You’ve slept with so many girls I’ve liked,” Marfa told him. “And you had to get Anastasia Romanov pregnant?” 

Dmitry readjusted Mikhail in his arms. “I definitely should’ve gone to Dunya with this instead of Mischa.”

She let out an irritated breath, “Fine, act like I don’t exist.” Then, “Do you want to talk about it?” 

“No,” he shook his head. “I’m still processing it.” 

“She broke your heart and didn’t look back,” Marfa reminded him. “Try to be careful with yourself.” 

“You don’t have to be so protective of me,” Dmitry reminded her. 

She looked like she wanted to argue with him, but instead just leaned forward and kissed her son on the cheek. 

“I can’t believe I have two children,” she sighed. 

Dmitry made a face as she pinched his cheek. 

“Go to work.” 

“That’s all you say to me these days,” Marfa complained. “Drop bombs about babies and tell me to go to work. I’m making you and Dunya hang out with me this weekend, Gleb can watch Mischa.” 

He opened his mouth to question the validity of that statement before closing. It was probably best to get in the practice that if he didn’t want to deal with her complaining about Anya, he should probably stop making fun of Gleb. 

That might be what being an adult was all about. 

“Have your people call my people,” he told her, and she flipped him off. 

Once she was gone from the apartment, he brought Mischa up so they were face to face. “We’ve got so much to talk about, buddy.”


	9. Chapter 8

_“Excuse me?” Anya called out. The room was abandoned, with rotting wood and cobwebs. It looked as though it should be shut down by the city. She half expected to run into the otherworldly here, like the people inhabiting couldn’t quite possibly be real, but ghosts of the past. Her breath came out in puffs when she spoke. A cold desert night. She heard a noise, and swallowed her fear. “I’m looking for Dmitry.”_

_There was a noise, and a sigh, “I’m Dmitry.”_

_Out stepped a taller boy, around the same age as her. She wasn’t certain what she was expecting, but someone around her own age was not it._

_This could not be the Dmitry she was looking for._

_His clothes were well worn and fraying, “What do you want?”_  
  
When Anya was younger, she had wanted so much. Then she had wanted what others had wanted for her. And she wasn’t certain still of what she wanted. Or if she was afraid to want what she wanted. 

Sometimes she still felt like a stranger amongst her family. And she was afraid that was all on her. 

She knocked on the door to her father’s study. And then entered at his bidding. 

Other than her grandmother, her father is the strongest memory from her childhood before she was kidnapped. Nothing that was truly a defining moment or memory. Just a general feeling of being twirled around, strong arms around her, giant hands tucking her in and a soothing voice speaking as she fell asleep. 

She held so many secrets for the sake of others. 

“Nastyona,” he looked up, greeting her. “You move back, and I see you even less than I did before.” 

“I’m sorry,” she replied automatically and her father waved it off. “I’ve been busy.” 

“Your sister says you’re looking for an apartment,” he commented. No doubt in which sister he meant. Little mother, Tatiana and Maria would teasingly call Olga at her worst. “Your mother and I could help you with that.” 

“I know,” Anya said. And she hates how meek she becomes in the presence of her family. They didn’t mean it but sometimes the guilt of her absence crushed her in their presence. “But…”

“You’d rather do it on your own,” her father had a fond smile on his face as he stood up, walking around the desk towards her. “You’ve always been an independent child. That’s never changed about you.” 

She was constantly being compared to a seven year old child. 

“I didn’t come to talk about the apartment,” Anya told him. “Is Mama around?” 

“She is having a lunch in Connecticut with some friends,” her father told her. “She won’t be back until tonight.” 

For some reason, she felt relief about that. Telling one parent seemed less daunting than telling both of them at the same time. Perhaps that was cowardly of her as well. 

“Oh, okay,” she said, and took a bracing breath. “I’m pregnant.” 

Her father blinked and stepped back, not quite expecting the conversation to go there. He opened his mouth, a question seemed poised to be asked. Then he settled his hands on her shoulders. “Dmitry?”

“How did…”

“It was only a matter of time,” her father said. “He’s not who I’d have chosen for you.” 

“Why not?” 

“It’s selfish,” her father began. “He’s who you would end up, but no one you would’ve known had you not been…”

Aye, there was the rub. Always. 

“You can’t erase what happened to me,” Anya said.

“Of course not, Malenkaya,” he told her. “It’s just hard to be reminded of your greatest parenting failure.”

“It wasn’t your fault I was kidnapped,” Anya argued. 

Her father let out a small, but bitter chuckle, “it’s sweet that you think that, but I go over those years in my mind and every decision I made that was a wrong turn.” He sighed. “Speaking of your Dmitry….do you know what it’s like to spend years and money trying to find you, only to have some twenty year old boy pluck you out of obscurity and deposit you on our doorstep?” 

That was more luck and poor intentions than anything else. 

“I think that was more the universe, than anything Dima did,” Anya said. 

“And I suppose the universe is responsible for this pregnancy as well,” her father remarked dryly. 

“There seems to be quite a bit of Dmitry and I written in the stars,” she said. She meant it as a joke, but it came out a bit dreamily. 

“I was never against him,” her father told him. “But you were very young when you two were first together. Very young and very wrapped up in each other. It’s a father’s instinct to worry.” 

“I do love you, Papa,” Anya said and he opened up his arms and she stepped into them. 

“And I you, Nastyona,” her father returned. “But I don’t envy you for when you have to tell your mother.” 

She laughed, but she felt so much lighter about the future now. 

-

Once upon a time, Anya had ruined an expensive gown and shoes to run through a highly tourist area of New York in order to stop Dmitry from leaving. It felt like another person, another lifetime ago. There had been two movie scenes about it, highly dramatic and wonderfully scored and completely inaccurate. 

It felt less dramatic now to simply knock on his door. 

He opened it, seeming unsurprised to see her. “You never call ahead.” 

“I like to stay consistent,” Anya told him. “Am I interrupting?” 

“Always,” but he said it with a smile, before stepping aside to let her in. 

“I wanted to talk to you,” she said, wringing her hands. “Or not.” 

“Well, that’s clear,” Dmitry said, shutting the door behind her. 

“It’s not always easy to talk to you,” Anya said. “And I think it’s mostly me but also why we keep hooking up.” 

It was easier to speak in the physical sense than to deal with expressing the messy complicated emotions. 

“You used to have no problem telling me what you thought.”

“You used to make me really mad,” she said with a soft laugh. “It would just come out.”

“I can’t believe I don’t still make you mad,” he teased, reaching over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. 

He didn’t. Not like he used to, when they first met and all their anger at each other had been from not understanding the other and unfair and wrong impressions. Once they understood each other...they understood each other. 

“We have a lot to talk about,” she admitted. “But I want to do this with you. Just all of it together. And maybe I shouldn’t have left three years ago or maybe I had to in order to get here but…” 

“Anya,” Dmitry said when there was a break in her rambling. “There was never any other choice for me.” 

“Even though I’m a mess?” 

“Especially because you’re a mess,” he said, before leaning down to kiss her. 

“And you’re a mess too,” she was sure to point out. 

Dmitry laughed sad be lifted her up, “I promise you, Anya, we are well matched.” 

So they were.


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this epilogue is (short) cheese. this is for cat, iz and leahushka for sticking through.

_Three Years Later..._

Stella Sudayev was far more enamored with the world at her father’s shoulders than she was by the stars she was named after. The stars are bright out that evening in their backyard in Northern Virginia. Anya liked to sit out in the backyard and read under the lantern Dmitry had planted out there when they first moved. 

Once deciding to get back together, to do everything for real, everything moved fast. Decisions- they had long outgrown New York City and so leaving this time they grew together. They were going to go out and explore more but one trip down to Virginia to drop off an antique dresser Dmitry had refurbished and sold had led to them falling in love with this space. 

She liked to bring Stella out here while she would read, but she doesn’t have the patience to sit still, and always needs to be in motion. The only things Anya has found that her daughter has inherited from her is her strawberry blonde hair and heart shaped face. Everything else about her is pure Dmitry. 

Dmitry hoisted Stella on his shoulders and walked her around the backyard. 

“Papa,” she can hear Stella suddenly demand. “I’m ready.” 

Fortunately for their two year old, her father understood what she meant, and he swung her down from his shoulders, and onto the chair beside Anya. He deposited her on the chaise lounge next to her, and placed a kiss on Anya’s lips before stepping away. 

Stella put her thumb in her mouth, the only thing that kept her off the pacifier at this point. Anya decided to ignore the bad habit, and stroked her daughter’s hair instead. Stella reached up with her free hand, and held onto the temple arm of Anya’s glasses. 

Dmitry sat in the chair next to her, propping his feet up on the edge of the lounge. He took the book she handed off to him, knowing she wouldn’t be able to read it now. 

“Do you want to see the stars now?” Anya asked her, and Stella nodded. Somehow managing to be enthusiastic and sleepy at the same time. 

Anya had thought she had understood her parents when she was reunited with them. Had felt guilt deep into her soul over the missed time and milestones of her life. Having Stella, however, had brought her to a new understanding of what her parents may have gone through. Even Dmitry had grown more patient with her family in the past two years. 

She had learned to build telescopes. When she was younger, she had sought things out herself. She had fearlessly-and thoughtlessly, attached herself to two strangers and brought herself across the country on a distant and vague hope. Somewhere along the line, along with falling in love and finding her family and learning how to cope with all of it, she had grown complacent. She let herself be led. 

A little bit by Dmitry, a lot by her parents and Grandmother. Even by her sisters, following Maria to Paris. Even coming back to New York originally had been because she was at a loss and the space and people were familiar. She forgot that she could do things for herself. 

She had asked Dmitry, so many years ago, somewhere on a forgotten spot in America, to build her a telescope. One day, a few weeks after they had moved into their home in Virginia, she had woken up and remembered it was something she could do on her own. 

Dmitry had stayed away from it at first. Partially at her insistence, but also, she rather thought, because of his own conflicted thoughts and emotions about his own father and memories. She was afraid, at one point, she was stealing something from him. This piece of history of his that she was making her own, but one evening, as she struggled, he gave a suggestion and story of his father, and everything fell into place. 

And now she reached into the container near her and pulled out two telescopes she had created herself, handing the smaller one to Stella. And setting up the larger one on the ground. Stella’s wasn’t all that functional, but she liked to hold it. Usually looking through the wrong end and giggling. 

“Do you want to see the stars?” Anya asked Dmitry, a chance she always offered to him. 

And one he always turned down with a shake of his head. What she saw in the stars is what he saw down here with them.


End file.
